


Thirsty Earth

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-15
Updated: 2002-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 07:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark visits Lex and reflects on their past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirsty Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Utmost gratitude to Jen and Karen for the beta-love, and for managing to talk me into posting the darned thing (how many months later?). 

## Thirsty Earth

by Maude M.

<http://www.popslash.net>

* * *

Title: Thirsty Earth 

Author: Maude M. 

Email: mod@popslash.net 

Feedback: Yes, please. 

Rating: R- For violence and non-explicit sex. 

Spoilers: None that I can tell. 

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. Not even the title-- I stole that from a poem by Abraham Cowley, since I couldn't think of anything to call this. 

Summary: A/U: Clark visits Lex and reflects on their past. 

Archive: Help yourself. 

Author's 

The scenes flash backwards and forwards in time, so I've indicated each shift with a --- Now --- or --- Then --- in the hopes that it would be less confusing. I guess we'll see how that goes. 

* * *

\--- Now --- 

A peal of thunder rolled over the Metropolis sky as the first drops of rain began to pelt the sidewalk. Clark shivered, but the cold hadn't penetrated the city yet, nor would he have been chilled if it had. It had taken him a matter of minutes to run here from the farm, but over an hour later he couldn't seem to move from the street corner on which he had stopped. 

But at a time like this, he couldn't stand the thought of waiting around Smallville. Smallville: where it never rained like this. Never this dank, dirty water pouring down from the sky just to stand on the pavement until it was funneled into a sewer. In Smallville, they welcomed the rain; the earth drank in the water and became rich and soft, and no one ever complained about it. Standing on the corner of Main and Liberty, Clark could hear passersby muttering contempt for the weather under their breath. 

He looked up, again, to the top of the Luthorcorp building and wondered if he would ever get up the nerve to go inside. He wondered if too much time had passed, or if Lex would be out of the country, or too busy to see him. Or. Or, if he would even want to see him. Clark could clearly remember the look on Lex's face the last time he saw him. Anger. Hurt. Some sort of wistfulness that he couldn't entirely understand. 

But this was something Clark had to do, and he knew it. So, six hours after arriving in Metropolis, he walked into the Luthorcorp building, and stopped at the security desk. Things had changed from the last time that Clark was here. A little less cold and metallic, a little more color. Lex had always hated the lobby. 

~"It looks like a 3000 square foot restroom," he'd said.~ 

"I need to see Lex," Clark said to the guard at the security desk. "Lex Luthor." 

The guard looked at him warily. "Do you have an appointment?" 

Clark shook his head and cursed himself for not bothering to lie at a time like this. "I'm an old friend. I think if you called him..." 

"I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to contact his assistant and make an appointment." 

Clark shifted his weight nervously, and glanced at the elevator, wondering if he should just make a run for it. "You, see, it's kind of an emergency. My name is Clark Kent and I used to..." 

A second security guard nudged the first and pointed to something that Clark couldn't see. "He's on the list, Parker. Send him up." 

The first guard nodded as comprehension overtook him. He gestured to the elevator and handed Clark a temporary visitor's badge. "22nd floor. I'll let Mr. Luthor's assistant know you're on your way." 

Clark nodded, and walked across the lobby to the elevator. As he punched the button and stepped to the back of the gleaming mirrored box, Clark felt a sense of dj vu. Riding this same elevator, to the same floor, under circumstances so entirely different that they seemed as if it might have been something from a movie. 

As the light moved closer and closer to the 22nd floor Clark's mind moved farther away, back to Smallville, back to the night that Lex shutdown the fertilizer plant, closed up the manor and left town for good. 

\--- Then --- 

Lex had been drinking. Bitter, brown liquor from a cut crystal decanter and poured into a matching tumbler. This wasn't the usual-- Lex may have been born sucking on a silver spoon, but his bottle of choice was usually whiskey: cheap and fast. But this was from the cabinet stocked by the elder Luthor; the glass that his father carried around during his infrequent and upsetting visits. 

"Lex, do you want to talk about it?" Clark asked gently, rounding the desk and kneeling to face Lex. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Lex like this, but these bouts of family-related intoxication always made him uneasy. 

Lex didn't bother to extract his face from the hard surface of his desk. "I think I can honestly say that I do not want to talk about it." 

"What did he do?" 

"He, who?" 

Clark frowned, issuing a pointed look to the bottle. "Your dad. That's your father's bottle." 

Lex smiled wryly and wiped his mouth. "Very observant, Clark. But I need to be alone right now, so if you'll..." 

"I think that's the last thing you need. The first thing you need is to get rid of this..." Clark grabbed the glass out of Lex's hand and emptied its contents into a potted plant. 

"Such drama, Clark," Lex muttered, making a faint gesture towards the bottle. 

"Lex, what did he do? You have to tell me. You know... you know you can tell me anything," Clark said quietly, a bit uncomfortably. His first instinct was to go to him, to put a hand on his shoulder and comfort him, but after what had happened only two weeks ago, he wasn't sure. He shifted his weight uncomfortably. 

"I can't tell you this." Lex sat up and latched his fingers around the back of his neck. 

"Yes, you can. If I can tell you about my... gifts, then you can tell me about this." 

Lex stared into space for a moment, then shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Yes. Your gifts." 

\--- Now --- 

Clark rode the elevator all the way to the 45th floor before realized that he missed his stop. When he finally made it back to the 22nd floor, a sweet-faced woman with soft blond hair rose from her post behind a cluttered desk and greeted him. "Mr. Kent?" 

"Um, yeah." 

"Mr. Luthor is in a meeting, but he would like you to wait for him. It should only be another five minutes or so." 

"Yeah, that's cool," Clark mumbled, seating himself in a padded leather chair and glancing at large painting hung on the opposite wall. "Hey, who painted that?" 

The assistant looked up to where Clark pointed and smiled. "I'm not sure. I think it was painted by an artist from Mr. Luthor's, that is, the senior Mr. Luthor's, home town." 

Clark stared at the painting of the Luthor Castle, amazed at how different it was from the actual building. The artist had painted the castle at sunset, with warm light caressing the cold stone. In the tiny windows shone welcoming light, and there was not a hint of the coldness that pervaded the Luthor Castle that he knew. 

\--- Then --- 

Lex shivered. 

"Are you cold? Do you need something?" 

"I need you to stop fussing and just leave." 

"Well, I'm not going to do that. So, you can just forget about it." A moment more of hesitation, then Clark dropped to his knees at Lex's side and placed a hand on Lex's arm. "Look at me." 

He did. Lex looked down at Clark, and despite the alcohol, began to regain a measure of control over himself. "Clark," he breathed. "Do you still want me?" 

Clark's blood divided, sending half careening to his cheeks and the other half a bit lower. He bit his lip. His mind raced with thoughts and questions, most of them stemming from the morality of going along with anything that Lex might propose while very drunk. But Clark could hardly help himself; the answer to that question had been on his mind constantly for months. Cautiously, he nodded. 

"Then let's pretend. Let's pretend that it's two weeks ago, and you've just told me how you felt." 

Two weeks ago: the mile marker from which he had measured everything since. The biology test? That happened before he humiliated himself in front of Lex. The trip to Metropolis? That was after the big confession. He didn't want to pretend. He didn't want to have another conversation that held phrases like "statutory rape" and "I'm flattered" and "you don't really know what you want". 

"Lex, this is..." 

"Say it. Say it just like you did when you told me." 

Clark looked around the room as if waiting for an explanation, then returned to the impatient look that Lex was wearing. "I... uh. Okay, if you say so. You said, 'I thought you wanted her for yourself,' and I said, uh, 'Not anymore, not really," and you said..." 

"I said, 'what is it that you do really want, Clark?'" 

Clark cleared his throat and searched Lex's eyes, still unsure of what, precisely, he wanted. "And I said, 'I think what I want, what I really want, is you.'" 

Clark gasped as he felt Lex's lips crashing into his own, the incredible heat of his mouth and the stinging taste of Scotch and breath mints on his tongue. It was awkward, stretching himself upward to meet Lex, his hands clutching Lex's rumpled purple shirt as much for balance as need. He heard his own name muttered under Lex's breath, and without entirely comprehending, he heard the rest, "I lied to you." 

\--- Now --- 

Clark's reaction to Lex after three years was something between admiration and shock. It wasn't that Lex had changed so very much; his clothes were a bit more formal, but otherwise he was the same Lex. And that's what shocked Clark. His mind had filtered through a thousand scenarios of what he would be like, and what would have happened, but the one thing that Clark was not prepared for was a familiarity that was so intense that old boundaries seemed to dissolve. 

"Clark. I have to say I'm surprised to see you. Pleased, of course, but surprised. You look well," Lex greeted him with an easy smile and an extended hand. 

"You too. I mean, you look just the same," Clark stammered, reddening, as his hand remained clasped with Lex's just a beat too long. 

"Tell me how things are in Smallville. How are your parents?" 

"They're good. The same. And..." Clark caught himself before he finished his sentence: "And yours?" 

\--- Then --- 

Clark was swirling in the lightheadedness of his first real kiss and didn't immediately understand what it was that Lex had muttered. "What? What did you say?" 

"Clark, oh God. You don't know how much I want you. Since you pulled me out of that water and every day since it's been..." 

Clark cut Lex off mid-babble. "Wait, wait. You just said something. You said you lied to me." 

Lex sat straight up in his chair and let out a long breath. "Yes. Yes, I lied to you." 

Clark stood and rounded the desk. "What about?" 

Pushing away a stack of papers, Lex reached down and pulled out an envelope. "Take this." 

"What is it?" 

"Money. A lot of money, Clark." 

Clark's breath left him, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if it would return. He stood up and walked a few steps away. "Why are you giving me money, Lex?" 

A long silence, then: "Because you're going to need it. You have to leave town. You need to go home, get your parents and go." 

Another step back. "What did you do?" 

"I told someone. About you. About your...gifts." 

Clark shook his head, taking yet another step back. Realization washed over him like cold water and his mind suddenly shifted to his parents. All the warnings that they had given him, all the mistrust that he had just ignored. Every Smallville scandal in which Lex seemed coincidentally entangled, and the realization that telling Lex his secrets had only served to unravel everything he never wanted to see about Lex Luthor. He couldn't accept it. "No. You promised. You _promised_ me, Lex." 

"I know." There was something in his tone, something utterly factual and numb that made Clark cold. 

"Who knows? Who did you tell?" Clark's voice cracked in half, leaving him sounding ragged and desperate. He knew the words before they even slipped from Lex's lips, but could not imagine why-- why him of all people? 

"My father." 

\--- Now --- 

"What brings you here?" 

"There's a problem. You're going to have to do something." 

Lex considered Clark for a moment, his fingertips pressed together, and his lips pursed. A look somewhere between anticipation and disappointment crept across his face. "Of course. Anything you need." 

"You don't understand. It's about your father." 

\--- Then --- 

"How could you tell him? Do you know what he'll do to me? How could you do this, Lex? How could you do this?" Clark wiped angrily at the tears forming in his eyes and reached for his jacket. 

The numb look melted from Lex's face, and he stood suddenly. "Where are you going? Don't go." 

"You just told me to leave. You were right. My family and I have to get out of here." 

Lex darted quickly to Clark, and grabbed his arm vehemently. "Wait. Don't go. Please, I need to explain." 

Clark turned around to face him with clenched fists, a hardened jaw, and the resolve to stop the tears that betrayed his hurt and anger. . "What's there to explain? You told my secret to the one person in the world that I would _never_ want to know. Why did you that? How could you do that?" 

"I had to..." 

"You had to? Why? Do you know what's going to happen to me? He's going to tell someone, and they're going to lock me away and dissect me. Is that really what you wanted, Lex?" Turing around, Clark plucked a vase off of a shelf and smashed it in his fist. 

"I told him because I had to. Clark, he was going to start manufacturing fertilizer, _here_ , using the meteor rocks. Not only would it have been sprayed all over everything you eat, but the manufacturing process was going to send microscopic particles into the air. I had to stop him." 

"So, telling him that the meteor rocks would kill me stopped him," Clark said disbelievingly. 

"No," Lex said calmly, reaching into his drawer. "This did." 

\--- Now --- 

Worry glanced Lex's face. "My father? Why? Did somebody..." 

"No. But they're about to. They've been by asking questions and taking statements. Again." 

"That was supposed to be over and done with ages ago." 

"There's been talk that they're reopening the case. Apparently new evidence, or something. Lex, they've been out around town with dogs." 

Lex let out a long breath and sat silently for a moment. "So, then I guess we're faced with the same problem as before." 

Clark nodded. 

\--- Then --- 

Clark's eyes opened as Lex unwrapped a small, black handgun in front of him. "Oh God. Oh, God, Lex. What did you do?" 

"I shot him." 

"You shot him? Your father? Oh God, Lex. No." 

Lex looked at him. "Yes, I did. Twice in the chest, and once in the head. Right over there, by the fireplace." 

"Why did you do that? Why did you shoot him? We could have moved. We would have just moved and hid-- oh God. Tell me you're lying! Tell me!" Clark shouted, pointedly _not_ looking at the fireplace. 

"But I did. He wasn't going to listen to me. He was never going to listen to me. But he sure started listening when I pulled out this puppy," Lex smiled a little and patted the gun. 

"You didn't have to kill him. Not for me." 

"I didn't kill him for you. I killed him for me. Nothing I do was ever going to matter to him. He wouldn't have shut down production of the meteorite fertilizer, if I asked him to, he would have doubled it. Just to spite me." 

"But- But, you're going to go to jail, Lex! You can't go to jail!" 

"Luthors don't go to jail," Lex shot back. A beat, then, "I'm not sorry. I told him about you after I shot him the first time. You know what was funny? He looked so angry. Not that I had shot him, but that he was going to die without being able to use any of that information to his advantage. Don't you see, Clark? He would have exploited you in every way possible, and when he was done, he would have turned you into fertilizer. I couldn't let him do that." Lex looked at Clark, his eyes begging for some kind of approval, some kind of understanding. 

"Where is he?" 

"In a safe place." 

\--- Now --- 

"When did they start looking?" Lex asked calmly. 

"Two days ago." 

"And how close do you think they are to finding something?" 

"Close. They've send dogs into creek bed back at the Hicks place. Any farther north and..." 

"And they'll need a search warrant." 

Clark eyed Lex wordlessly; he was engaged in a conscious effort to keep down three years worth of things left unsaid, and a flood of emotions he had completely forgotten about from reddening his face. The six feet that separated them now seemed even greater than the distance separating them only a day ago. It was a distance that exaggerated every thing that Clark had missed: Lex's scent, that conspiratorial smile, the straightforward confidence that seemed to ease his mind instantly. 

"Do you think that they'll be able to get one?" Clark asked. 

Lex stood up and walked to the window overlooking the Metropolis skyline. "I don't know." 

\--- Then --- 

"A safe place? You hid him? You hid the- the," Clark forced himself to say the word, "body?" 

Something about Lex's posture, the posture that Clark had always known seemed to change dramatically. Lex dropped into a chair and clutched his head with both hands. "Shit, Clark! What was I supposed to do? I couldn't call the Smallville police department and just tell them that I shot my father!" 

"Why not?" Clark thought frantically for a moment. "Maybe-- maybe if you just tell them what happened then they'll be more lenient. Maybe it was self-defense?" 

Clark looked down at Lex hopefully; Lex shook his head very slightly. Clark felt as if every ounce of his greater-than-normal strength had drained out of him, and he sank to the floor, his back against a wall. 

"I can't go to the police, Clark." 

"You have to. They're going to find out. Sooner or later they're going to find out, and you're going to have to tell them." 

"I can't go to the police. There would be a million questions. About me, about him, about you." 

"About me?" Clark found it odd that he wasn't more shocked, but his capacity for surprised had been greatly stretched in the past ten minutes. 

"Yes, about you Clark. There would be no way to deal with them that wouldn't involve your name." 

"But, but you could lie..." 

"Then what's the point of going to the police?" Lex asked, frustrated. 

"God! I don't know! I don't know! I can't even comprehend this! I just know that it's the first thing I thought of, and it's usually the right thing to do, and I'm sorry if I'm making stupid suggestions, but you just told me that you... and I don't know what to do! I can't save you from this!" 

Lex crawled across the floor to where Clark sat and knelt beside him. He placed a hand on Clark's cheek, letting Clark's renewed tears flow over his fingers. Clark lunged himself into Lex's chest with childlike need and superhuman strength, neither of which seemed to make Lex flinch a bit. "Don't worry, Clark. Don't worry; I'm going to take care of it. Nobody's going to find out, and you won't need to save me." 

\--- Now --- 

"What are you going to do?" Clark asked hesitantly, not wanting to find out anything more than he had to. 

Lex turned away from the window and smiled. "I'll take care of it. Thank you for bringing the situation to my attention." 

"But..." 

"Ah, Clark. You're the same as ever. Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders," Lex seemed to soften as he said the words, then snapped back to his distant look. "Well, you can leave this particular load with me, my friend." 

"But..." 

Lex paced over to Clark and laid a hand on his shoulder. "But nothing. We had an agreement." 

\--- Then --- 

Clark knew this feeling, the same vulnerability that he felt around the meteor rocks, the same helplessness that he used to feel about Lana and her feelings for Whitney, and the same loss of control that he'd felt when dealing with Phelan. But as much as he worried that Lex wouldn't be able to handle things, he worried even more that he would. It would be confirmation of all of his worst fears, not only about Lex, but also about himself. Clark knew that there was only one right way to handle this situation, but that solution was the least appealing. At once, his mind flashed back to something from a few minutes before. 

"What's with the money, Lex? Why do you want us to leave if you have everything under control?" 

Lex pulled away and sat shoulder to shoulder with Clark against the wall. "I'm covering my bases, Clark. If anything about this does get out, they can still come after you with questions. You need to go somewhere safe." 

There was something in Lex's tone, an insincerity that Clark had heard Lex use with other people, but never with himself. Clark turned to study his face for a moment and came to a realization. "You want me to leave, because you're planning on staying. You think that if I don't leave, you're going to hurt me." 

"Damn it, Clark. Have you heard a word I said since you got here? I just _shot my father_. Who do you think I am?" 

Clark could admit to himself that he didn't know. Lex was a man that could kill his own father. He was a man that could kill his own father for _Clark_. Lex was the one who made him completely sure of himself with a single look, and completely unsure with the next. Lex was the one that he thought about in the dark, damp morning hours when he woke up with a desperate need for friction. And it was Lex that was making him hard even now, at the most inappropriate time for a hard-on in the history of hard-ons, and the one that had his warm weight against him and... 

...and it was such a short gap to close: from the soft silk of Lex's shirt to the soft silk of Lex's mouth. He tried to mumble some sort of answer to the question at hand into Lex's lips, but it was lost in the motion of his tongue sliding against Lex's, in the fluid heat between them and the feeling of Lex's hand wound tightly into his hair. 

It was Lex that pulled away. "Jesus, Clark. Jesus. This is just the worst possible..." 

Clark agreed with the thought that Lex didn't finish in favor of tearing open Clark's shirt and planting his lips on Clark's neck. Every time that Clark's mind wandered back to the image of Lionel's body lying crumpled in some remote corner of the house, it only made him push himself harder against Lex. Image after image flashed through Clark's mind: Lex unwrapping the gun, Lex unbuttoning his jeans, Lex pointing to where he had shot his father, Lex's shirt tearing in half with the slightest tug. 

Clark was drowning. 

\--- Now --- 

The thunder clapped outside, punctuating the awkward silence between them. And though Clark did not want to be privy to any further wrongdoing on Lex's part, there was a small part of him that felt that he was owed something. Something the tiniest bit personal to acknowledge what had once been between them. "So that's how it is? I come to see you after all this time and you talk to me like I'm giving you the weather report?" 

Something crossed Lex's face, but it was too subtle to read. "What else do you want, Clark? I'm extremely grateful for the information, and of course if there's anything you need..." 

"No, Lex," Clark said exhaustedly. "I don't need anything." 

Lex pursed his lips together and looked at Clark intently. "You're the one who wanted me to leave." 

"Yes. Yes, I did." 

\--- Then --- 

Their desperate and chaotic release left them gasping and crumpled on the cold marble floor. It left Clark without answers or peace of mind, and Lex wordless. Torn clothing lay strewn around the floor in defeated piles, and the broken vase had sliced Lex's back along the shoulder blade. The worry and doubt could no longer be silenced. "What do we do now?" 

Lex looked at him for a long time. "I'm going to make a call to a man that can take care of things for me. You are going to go home and pretend that nothing's happened." 

Clark bit his lip. "How? How can I pretend that nothing's happened? How can you pretend that nothing's happened?" 

"You have to pretend, because I don't want you involved at all. I, on the other hand, have to make a million arrangements. I have to report my father missing. I have to talk to the board. I'm going to have to make arrangements to have money transferred, and I'm going to have to stay in Metropolis for a while. This is going to be a nightmare." 

Clark choked. "And your father? What about him?" 

Lex began to pick up the clothes from the floor. "He's probably going to be spending some quality time in the quarry. Nice and safe and unfindable. Jesus, Clark. Don't ask so many questions. You know if you're ever questioned..." 

Clark was numb. He sat on the floor like a stone as Lex rambled on about this plan and that plan, this arrangement and that. Every ounce of worry, every bit of remorse seemed to have left him, and Lex's mind was clearly pointed to the future. "Where do I fit into all of this?" Clark asked. 

Lex walked over to Clark and twisted his fingers into his hair. "As soon as things cool off, I want us to be together again. Don't doubt that." 

Clark doubted it. 

\--- Now --- 

"And how are your parents?" 

Clark balked at the obvious change of subject. "You already asked that." 

Lex laughed. "I did, didn't I? Jesus, Clark. There was a time when we were never at a loss for words around each other." 

"Yeah." 

Lex thought for a moment then looked at him intently. "You haven't changed your mind. About our agreement. Have you?" 

Twenty minutes ago, Clark wouldn't have known what to say to that. Entering this building, being so close to Lex, seeing him for the first time in... " No, I haven't changed my mind." 

Neither of them had changed much at all. Lex was the same person that he had turned into after the first and only time they had made love. He was still all business and planning and devoid of remorse. And Clark was still the same kid who would have loved him all the more if Lex had gone to the police. He would have loved Lex through the thick Plexiglas and he would have loved him when he finally got out. But he didn't love this person who could make everything disappear with the press of a button. 

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lex said. A wistful look glanced his face. 

"I believe you." 

\--- Then --- 

Clark dressed himself in Lex's clothes. The pants were much too short, and the shirt clung to his torso like a second skin. Clark didn't care; it was just to keep him from having to run home naked. He went back to find Lex, where he had left him: in the study making one of the many phone calls he had spoken of. With every step closer his resolve became stronger. 

"Lex," Clark said, standing in front of him. Lex lifted a finger, as if to ask him to wait, and Clark insisted. "Lex, we have to talk. It's important." 

"I'll call you back," Lex said into his phone and turned to Clark. "What's wrong?" 

"I think. I think that," Clark stammered. "I think that when you go back to Metropolis, you should stay there. I think you shouldn't come back to Smallville." 

Lex shut his eyes. "Ever?" 

"Ever." 

Lex swallowed. "I did it for you. I know what I said, but I did it for you. You know that, right? I would do anything for you." 

Clark turned around, unable to look at Lex anymore. "I know. But I don't want you to. I don't know how I'm going to live with the fact that you killed another human being for me, and I really don't know if I could possibly go through it again. I think it would be best if you agreed to leave Smallville for good. Today never happened; I'll never breathe a word of it, I promise." 

"Is that what you really want?" 

"Yes." 

\--- Now --- 

"I better get going. Mom and Dad will be wondering what's keeping me." 

"I guess you'll be going to college soon." 

Clark cleared his throat. "This fall." 

"Time flies," Lex muttered. "Well, I don't want to keep you. It's been great seeing you again." 

Clark nodded and stood. "You too Lex. I've missed you." 

Lex nodded and Clark headed to the door. "Clark." 

"Yes?" 

"Don't worry about the police. My father's nowhere near Smallville. If the police are looking around there, they aren't going to find a thing." 

Clark nodded numbly, struck with the realization that the last thread of closeness between he and Lex had just snapped. As he walked out of Luthorcorp and back into the rain, he ran top speed back to Smallville, gladder than he could possibly comprehend to feel the asphalt give way to the soft rich, rain-soaked soil beneath his feet. 

\---End--- 


End file.
